> So the question is what should be the effective response? Those pushing the censorship/free speech framing argue that removing voices is wrong -- banning, deplatforming, etc. That may be right, but it's also incomplete as it doesn't address the dynamic of the well-resourced voices overwhelming everyone else.

It's a good point, but the loud voices that have been driving this "anti-free speech" shift are also a loud minority. The people who got Alex Jones banned everywhere, got YouTube to start demonetising videos, got Trump banned from Twitter, were essentially a small group of influential Twitter users (some of whom also had jobs in the media, giving them huge platforms to put pressure on these companies). It's a "natural law" of human societies that the 1% are disproportionately loud, on any issue, and drive what the other 99% hear and think; not just a feature of online spaces. When you think of a liberal, or a conservative, or a college student, for example, whatever you picture in your head is just the loudest, most visible portion of that group, but is likely a tiny minority of that group. Whatever opinion you have on science, or nutrition, is driven by a very tiny loud minority, whether that's lobbyists, or a few influential individuals (maybe Neil deGrasse Tyson, maybe Al Gore, maybe a prominent scientist, or maybe the Coca Cola company). Without them, the popular mind might think quite differently.

Ergo; the "censorship shift" isn't about giving the minority their voice, it's two warring minorities struggling for control of the Overton window.